I don't remember much of the trek up the hillside, toward the smear of smoke in the sky. Mostly, I remember the way the branches stung my face as I hurried along, heart pounding at the thought of losing sight of my father. He was already so far ahead of me, crouched low but moving quickly, knife in his hand. I slipped and landed on my knee, but bit back a cry—better to bloody my own lip than to earn a reproachful look from him. He would not have slowed anyway.
I wanted to call out to him, to call him back, to tell him to turn around. I wished—and still wish, to this day—that I had never seen that smoke or at least never pointed it out to him. Maybe then we could have just gone back to our home and things would have gone on the way they always had. I think that even though I know it wouldn't have made any difference whether I showed him the smoke or not. We hadn't caught anything yet and he would have stayed on the hunt until he had something for supper. My father was not one to return empty handed, no matter how quiet and empty the forest seemed. He would have seen the smoke eventually and wanted to investigate it.
Some things are just meant to be.
I nearly bumped into him at the top of the hill, so well-hidden was he. He hissed and cursed my clumsiness, then shoved me harshly to the ground. I whimpered, afraid to move or speak. Father was crouched behind the same bush he had thrust me under, peering through the top branches down the slope below. His eyes were wide and alert, scanning the scene and horizon for any sign of movement. I could hear my own heartbeat, but not the sound of his breath. The air smelled of cinders.
"They're gone," he whispered. He didn't move, but I sensed that he wouldn't be angry if I did. I slowly rolled over, pushed myself up and peered down through our hiding spot, taking great care to be as silent as possible.
Still, I couldn't contain a gasp.
The forest fell away at the base of the hill and opened up into a small valley that had once been clustered with homes and, from the look of it, a small mill or smithy. Now scorched earth replaced the soft grass between skeletal structures that still smoldered with putrid smoke. I saw a few shapes that may have once belonged to people—both large and small—but their bones had been so consumed by fire that there was nothing left for the birds, and there were no other scavengers in sight. I whimpered and pulled on the back of my father's shirt.
He was already pulling away, drifting down the slope with his bow half ready. I stumbled behind him, heart racing, eyes scanning the horizon the way he had always taught me to. He reached the bottom and his boots churned up new clouds of dust and ash that clung to his legs. He stood in the middle of the town road, ears cocked, then lowered his bow and slung it over his shoulder.
"It's okay," he called to me. "There's nobody here." His voice seemed impossibly loud and I wanted to tell him to be quiet. I could never do that.
"What happened?" I think I spoke just to break the silence. It was obvious what had happened.
He picked a torn bit of fabric from a scorched bush and looked at it in disgust. "Salviks," he spat. "That'd be my guess. Don't know how or why they'd be this far north."
We crept through the ruined village, poking at piles of rubble and refuse. Nothing stirred. The silence was so thick it pressed in on my ears. I peered around a ruined chimney, black with soot and crumbling, and saw the remnants of a scorched table—the only recognizable form in a blasted square peppered with piles of burnt furnishings.
"Where are the people?"
My father grunted in reply. "Gone," was all he said.
I caught a glimpse of a tiny splash of color and broke away from his grip, pulling at a piece of fabric that had somehow escaped the destruction. It was a doll of some kind. Most of the color had been bleached away or dirtied with soot, but it looked like it might have once been dressed as a pretty young girl, maybe a princess, with blue eyes, dark hair and rosy cheeks. I held it up.
"Take it if you like," he said. "Nobody will care where you found it, or who had it last."
I shook some of the dust free of it. Nobody would care where I found it. Something stirred in me when he said those words. This had once been a loved plaything, most likely hidden when the trouble first started. It had brought someone joy, perhaps dreams of a better life, yet that person was gone now, and there would be none to remember her. None to tell what happened here.
"I want to go home," I whispered.
Father suddenly straightened, ran a hand over his head, and swore. He was looking back over the hill, toward where I thought our home would be, with real fear in his eyes.
It took a second to register and when it did, it felt like I had turned into ice.
"Momma," I said, and then ran after him.
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